SMACC

There is a natural synergy between emergency medicine and intensive care — at least that’s what some of us of think… including our EMCrit buddy Scott Weingart, he of the ‘Upstairs care, downstairs’ mantra (or is it Downstairs patients, Upstairs…?). The symbiosis and overlap between these fields of medicine is particularly prominent in the world of social media. While emergency medicine leads from the front in the way its practitioners have embraced blogs, podcasts, Twitter and other elements of FOAM, the ICU world is also waking up and coming to the party (think Intensive Care Network, Rob McSweeney’s Critical Care Reviews and PulmCCM.org).

But it is even bigger than this.

The legendary Peter Safar once said that critical illness is a condition that starts prehospital, and then continues in the ED, on the wards, in the ICU and in the OR. Critical illness knows no walls, it respects no geographic borders. It is no surprise then that the FOAM revolution continues to reveal our deep affinity with our prehospital colleagues (the likes of Resus.ME and PHARM for instance) as well as those MacGyvers of medicine we often forget, those who deal with the sickest of the sick with the least resources (remote practitioners and GP proceduralists like BroomeDocs and KIdocs).

But it is not just in the US and Australasia that this is happening. Joe Lex is collecting talks from the world over for everyone’s benefit (FreeEmergencyTalks.net), the Poms are coming to the party (StEmlyns) and we are finding new FOAM friends throughout Europe, South America and – hopefully soon – more to come from Africa and Asia.

Thanks to FOAM and social media it is easier to see that we’re all on the same page. We all want to save lives, or failing that, relieve the suffering of the critically ill.

But some of us have felt that something is still missing.

What if we could actually bring all these people together in one place? One place where we could all talk about how emergency medicine AND intensive care AND critical care everywhere AND social media come together? One place where we could all learn from one another, and ultimately create resources that could be shared online with the fast-growing FOAM community?

The place exists.

In 2013 that place was the Sydney Conference and Entertainment Centre. In 2014, it will be the Gold Coast Convention Centre in Queensland, Australia.

The event is:

All the media from SMACC will appear here as they are released over the coming months.